Blood Minded
by Protector23
Summary: It was never wise, but then what act performed with any degree of passion is? Rating for potentially suggestive situations, self harm, and clinical mental disorder to a character. Disclaimer.
1. Chapter 1

**I own nothing except a die-hard fanship and a Patrick Jane sticker. Enjoy!**

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><p>Lisbon<p>

It had never been wise, but then what act carried out with any degree of passion is? The scent of metallic rust and bitter alcohol relaxed in the air around dark masking hair concealing shimmering emerald eyes. Although her senses were blurred and her conscience was foggy she knew she had to be cleaning up the mess soon. Her red stained watch spoke of an early morning only an hour away without so much as a hint of rest. It was Sunday only four hours ago but Lisbon couldn't even remember coming home from the bar two hours ago. It was going to be a tough day at work.

Jane

Clammy hands rose to the occasion and effortlessly wiped away nightmares that fell out of his mind and cluttered around the edges of groggy eyes. He was glad to be rid of them too. Perhaps it was childish, but Jane always enjoyed turning meaningless objects and things he observed into something with a life and purpose. It was his way of letting his mind be tricked into thinking it wasn't trapped in a miserable man's body- he felt better giving it several things to give something to so it would never be bored.

As Patrick stepped into the shower, he was sure to address all bottles equally so that none of them would feel left out. We don't want Conditioner to grow a complex because Shampoo is used twice do we? He thought about what the day might hold as was rather looking forward to seeing his friends. Overnight he had come up with new ways to divert their attention onto his fun.

Van Pelt

Finishing off the last Our Father, Grace gracefully graced the gracious CBI with her grace. She stumbled carelessly out of her car and swung open the double doors just to feel special knowing that nobody but Pete the security officer was around to see her. Her hair needed to be brushed and her makeup needed to be done so a trip to the nearest mirror was in order. It wasn't like her to come into work so early (since the morning disliked her) but Van Pelt decided that it was time the Boss started recognizing her hard work. Come to work early, leave late. That will surely do!

Just before the young agent pushed open the Ladies bathroom door the sound of running water pervaded her ears and brought a red tint to her cheeks. She expected to be the only one on the second floor, but apparently someone had beat her here. Van Pelt listened closer to see if she could tell who it was. There was uninterrupted flowing water as if they had only turned it on to drown out some other noise. Then there was the rip of tape freshly pulled off a roll, duct tape?

_'This is silly. I should just walk in and see what's going on.'_

A small framed woman twitched back when the opening door gave her a fright and she quickly gathered all the dirty paper towels before whoever was there could see the mess.

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><p><strong>Please review and tell me what you think!<strong>

**-Jess**


	2. Chapter 2

Lisbon

"Damn!" The vulgarity spilled from a woman's hectic mouth as she scrambled to clean up the paper towels. Her inner critic harassed her, _"There's too many, there's no way you could get this done! They're going to catch you!"_ If she was weak she would have felt the need to cry, but if there was any word to describe Agent Lisbon it wasn't weak.

Van Pelt walked cautiously into the bathroom careful to not interrupt something that might be inappropriate or embarrassing, "Oh hey," her boss greeted her with hands behind her back sheepishly standing in front of the trash can, "What are doing here so early?"

The question sounded more like a guilty child inquiring as to the parents arrival rather than a friend simply making conversation, "I came in early today just to get some work done," the young woman explained suspiciously.

Van Pelt

_"I'm not stupid. I may be young and thought little of in the office but I am not stupid,"_ she declared to herself. She could see the bloody paper towel that fell out of the trash resting just behind Lisbon's right foot and she noticed the smudged red stain on her face.

"Are you ok boss?"

Lisbon looked down and noticed the one that fell. Her heart sank to her stomach and she sensed a worthless dread of defeat, "Yeah, I'm fine."

A pause. A terrible, awkward pause filled the air and pounded on the ears of both women. Lisbon wanted to find an excuse for Van Pelt to leave, and the latter wasn't going to be the first to blink. Grace had always been trying to figure out how Jane did it- figuring out everything about somebody with merely a glance and only one or two questions. She had always attempted to recreate his mindset and embody it as her own but never succeeded. In the past it had always been because either Jane had beat her to it or it wasn't an important enough situation. She decided to focus as hard as possible to riddle out her boss's odd behavior.

It didn't take very long though, "Boss, there's blood dripping on the floor behind you. Do you need me to get the first aid kit?"

If she said yes it would mean she needed to be helped by her employees and she wasn't powerful enough to be in the position that she is in. If she said no Van Pelt would grow even more curious and bring her story to the rest of the team. And the last person in the world she wanted to hear about this little mistake is Jane.

"Yeah," she said hardly audibly. She kept her arms behind her back.

Jane

The drive to the CBI building was uneventful. There were only three cars he passed on the way and that's no fun. There weren't enough people to make jokes about. At least one guys was worth a small amount of attention. From further down the road Jane spotted a car swerving in and out of lanes. He sped up to see if the man was drunk, distracted, or just dumb. It turned out that he had both hands on the wheel but with his thumbs he was holding open a comic book. The pizza faced nerd had to be no older than 19. Poor boy, he's going to get into a wreck like that one day.

As the devilishly handsome consultant strutted down the hallways he checked his babysitter's office to find a backpack and car keys, but no Lisbon. He knew she was coming right back so he put on a pot of muddy dirt water for her return.

"Oh, hello Grace. What are you doing here so early? Trying to impress Lisbon?" he joked. She let out a small chuckle and brushed right passed him and removed the first aid kit. He knew something was wrong.


	3. Chapter 3

**Hey guys, so someone asked about the "dirty mud water" Jane made. I didn't realize it was confusing until I re-read it again. I was talking about coffee- he calls Lisbon's coffee "dirty mud water" and far less tasteful than his warm tea. Just some Jisbon quarreling references.**

**If you have any more questions please ask! Thanks Kuhlama.**

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><p><strong>Van Pelt<strong>

If she could just act cool while grabbing the first aid kit, maybe Jane wouldn't say anything. Gosh, why did he have to be here so early? He's going to ask questions and figure out what's going on and Lisbon is going to be angry. Just act natural, just act natural…

"Hey Van Pelt, what's going on? You ok?" Jane asked. He had his signature curiosity face so happily plastered across his attractive face.

"Oh," Grace said as normally and coolly as possible, "nothing. Just a small cut. I don't really know actually, but we just need a band-aid."

Crap! He saw the lie…right? It wasn't really a lie. Details are truly not known, right? Whether he knew or not, he let it go.

**Lisbon**

Van Pelt came back a few minutes later and Lisbon had found her way over to the sink. She held a wet paper towel over a wide section of the under part of her arm. Thankfully no blood had seeped through. She made sure to keep her long dark hair over her face. The last thing she wanted now was for her agent to see her looking weak.

The supply box was placed on the counter, "Did you get a cut? You might need sti-"

"I'm fine," she snapped, "I just need a bandage or something. Thanks though."

Teresa bowed her head in gratitude when the young woman left without further question. Her slippery fingers struggled to open the kit and find butterfly band-aids. Removing the paper towels was easy. Pouring the disinfectant over the three vertical gashes was difficult. She knew that there was the threat of losing too much blood and passing out or even dying. Perhaps this is one of those emergency Time-off Requests that had been saved up from the past two years.

The phone rang from Lisbon's back pocket, "Hello?"

"Hey Lisbon!" a man's voice exclaimed. There was something dimensional about it though, like he was standing right there.

"Jane," if it was possible her stomach sank even lower, "where are you?"

She already knew he was standing right outside the door with Van Pelt, but she thought there was a slight chance she was wrong…she hoped there was a slight chance she was wrong.

"In the building-" The phone hung up but the man waltzed in and kept talking, "what happened?"

She had only seen his eyes so full of concern on only three times; when he joined the team right after losing his family, when a madman almost shot her three years ago, and when she cried.

**Jane**

There are four ways to explain the injury. But who would Patrick Jane be if he layed out his ideas one by one in an organized and easy-to-understand manner? He knows what could have happened and he knows what likely happened, he just wanted to figure out why.

Her embarrassed movements nearly pulled his attention away from her horribly broken face, "Jane, I'm fine." The words were slurred. She had either had a lot to drink recently, had a lot to drink recently with some pills on the side, or she just had a lot of pills with a small drink. Either way she consumed alcohol; it's awful stench was in her hair.

"Lisbon, I don't care about the law. I don't care about following the rules. I just want you to tell me what happened," she said nothing, "if you don't I will." Again, she said nothing, "Alright fine. You were at a bar (you really should wash off that stamp) to meet someone. Your brother? No. A guy friend?"

She flinched, "It's not like that."

"But you were at a bar to meet someone? If it wasn't about hooking up then what was it about? Business? Was he paying you were you paying him?" It hit a little too close to home and she snapped.

Her thumb pressed into one of the gashes and the oils from her skin burned in a wonderful way, "The shit I do for you! The shit I put myself through so that you won't get hurt! You don't even know and if you did you wouldn't even care." Her speech was laced with regret and wavy uncertianty. Patrick couldn't quite make out what she was complaining about at first. Then he couldn't quite put the pieces of the puzzle together.


End file.
